


After the Fall

by LyraNgalia, rude_not_ginger



Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Episode: s01e23-24 The Woman/The Heroine, F/M, Hallucinations, Humiliation, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light BDSM, Mind Games, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rude_not_ginger/pseuds/rude_not_ginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his false relapse and Moriarty's capture, Sherlock Holmes calls on the services of his favourite dominatrix to purge himself of the feelings he has for the late Irene Adler. But Sherlock gets more than he bargained for, when an unexpected visitor intrudes on his session.</p><p>A companion piece to <i><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/894774">With Heroin in His Veins</a></i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Fall

It's the morning after Irene Adler---Moriarty, whoever she is---was taken away. Watson is out for an extended run and possibly a meeting with Alfredo. Sherlock has the run of the house, and Natasha is due in at any moment.  
  
She's been informed that his gunshot injury is not to be damaged, but other than that, she can do whatever she wants to him sexually. This is not a ploy to rid himself of the emotions he was feeling for Irene's return, he tells himself. After all, Irene never really existed.  
  
He peels off his tee shirt as instructed in the text message sent as he waits.  
  
  
The brownstone is silent as he waits, its walls muffling the noise of the world outside like a fragile soap bubble. There is, eventually, the sound of heeled boots, heavy against the concrete walkway outside as Natasha approaches. The door is left open, per instruction, and it opens with a click and closes again with a slam. Only then, does the sound of footsteps differentiate, the heavier sound of Natasha's over-the-knee boots, solid with the sound of life, with the need to maintain balance, and the light precise click of a pair of stiletto heels whose wearer did not allow such mundane things as balance or physicality bother her.  
  
"Someone's been a naughty boy, hasn't he?" Natasha's voice, punctuating the click of her heeled boots.  
  
And a second voice, curling unseen like cigarette smoke through the brownstone, "Go on, Sherlock, do answer the woman, or she'll lose her place in her script."  
  
  
He knows that voice. It's like an ache to an already festering wound. Of course the Irene from his mind---or wherever it is she comes from---would be here. Dark and beautiful, almost an enemy, she can command him with looks in ways no dominatrix could with whips and chains.  
  
All the same, he responds to Natasha immediately.  
  
"Yes, Mistress."  
  
  
A tsk of mild disapproval, the sound punctuating the clink of metal as Natasha drops her bag, handcuffs, no doubt. Natasha speaks, but it is overshadowed by the familiar voice, suddenly close, and punctuated with the phantom touch of fingernails against his arm. "Behaving already? I'm disappointed, pet. Almost as disappointed as the fact she'll simply hang you from the ladder."  
  
  
Her nails across his arm send goose pimples all over his skin. Oh, what he'd give to be dominated by her, the Irene Adler of his mind.  
  
"And what if that's what I want?" he mutters. Natasha's voice is lost to him, but Irene is right, she wants him to be hanging from the ladder. Natasha's predictability used to be less predictable, but no one is perfect.  
  
He steps over to the ladder, raising up his arms as he imagines he was instructed.  
  
  
"If that's what you wanted, I wouldn't be here."  
  


He moves, and she follows, the precise staccato click of her heels dogging him. Her finger follows the curve of his spine as he raises his arms, standing still and obedient.  
  
"You want to be beaten, Sherlock, and not just by her whips. Her technique is atrocious, by the way. Favours brute force rather than understanding _where_ precisely to strike." Her voice jumps from knowing seduction to painfully conversational in a matter of heartbeats, and back again even as Natasha snaps a handcuff around his wrist.  
  
"You want to be beaten in your mind, dear. In that brilliance that is so much of what you are, because you can't abide the fact that she fooled you, that she twisted your brain and your heart into knots. And you want to be beaten in your heart because that's what you think deserves punishment, for letting it rule your head."  
  
That same phantom hand runs down his spine again, this time dragging four nails along the skin. "Say yes for me."

  
  
She's right. He doesn't want her to be right, but Moriarty---she turned his heart into his weakness, and he'll never forgive himself for allowing her that ability. He wonders if the Sherlock that would've matched with the dark-haired dominatrix in his mind would've given in, let his heart rule his head. Or would he have been as precise and sharp as her heels, never losing track of his own thoughts?  
  
Natasha asks him if he likes being tied up, but when he says "Yes," it isn't for her.  
  
  
He says yes, and she smiles, the touch of her nails no longer against his back, her fingers light as they trace up his shoulder and along his throat. "Very good. And you've got your reward."  
  
Only then does she move into view, all dark, elaborate coif, blood red lips, and pale skin beneath black lace as she seems to walk around the ladder to stand in front of him. She nods dismissively to the dominatrix Natasha behind him, to the side, as she pulls on a pair of satin gloves and examines her implements. "I prefer leather," Irene remarks conversationally. "They leave such a better sting." Her fingers run along his cheek. "You'd wear it well, darling, right there."  
  
  
He doesn't shiver, but he lifts his jaw as her finger traces his face. He has imagined her fully clothed, imagined her nude, and yet there's something even more delightfully sensual about this lace outfit, just hiding all of her attributes. The leather corset Natasha wears pales in comparison.  
  
"I want you to punish me," he murmurs.  
  
He imagines that Natasha probably thinks he's talking to her.  
  
  
Natasha does mistake his response, after all, there was no one else he could be speaking to, not in this intimate setting, and chooses a thin, flat paddle from among her tools to begin with. Irene, on the other hand, simply leans in, her lips just barely brushing his cheek.  
  
"I'm hardly here to keep you company. I know you, Sherlock, I know every little thought that goes through that marvelous mind. You can't hide them from me, that weakness. And I am going to break every memory you have of her, every detail about that trip in the catacombs beneath London, every star on her shoulder, until you can't tell where your heart stops and where the wound starts."  
  
  
No, he thinks. He doesn't want that. The catacombs, they're special. The moles on her shoulder, the way he felt, it _matters_. Except it shouldn't, and it makes him weak. He can't be weak for Moriarty.  
  
"Yes," he says. She'll break his mind. Maybe Natasha can cause something physical he can remember.  
  
  
She pulls back and, without hesitation, slaps him hard, her hand landing precisely at the spot where she'd told him he'd wear a mark well, at the same instant Natasha lands her first (sloppy) blow. "You're lying to me, dear. Didn't I tell you that I knew every traitorous thought in your head?"  
  
  
Natasha is hardly an amateur. Sherlock calls her when he needs to be punished, and Natasha usually can fulfill anything he needs. She was even willing to purposefully ignore Watson when she first arrived, just because the power play would make him happy.  
  
Now, the physical sting of the paddle across his thigh has nothing to the slap that Irene makes across his face. He shuts his eyes and doesn't make a noise.  
  
If she is really just part of his mind, then she can hear his thoughts, hear him begging for her to strike him again.  
  
  
She tsks in disapproval as he holds still, holds back, and the strike that he is so desperately, silently begging for does not come, her hand does not touch him even as the paddle swings again.  
  
"Use your words, pet. Just because I know you're thinking it doesn't mean you don't have to say it. Beg and I will have you right here and she-" A nod towards Natasha, "will never even know it."  
  
  
Natasha is talking to him. She's telling him what a bad boy he's been, all that humiliation that usually turns him on immensely. Now, her words are a hum, a buzz in the background of Irene's voice.  
  
"Strike me again," he begs. "Please."  
  
Natasha looks concerned and asks for a color. Of course, she thinks he's talking to her.  
  
"Green." She picks up her paddle again. Sherlock watches Irene.  
  
  
Irene smiles at the way he keeps his eyes fixed on her, and reaches out to run a cool finger against his cheek, along the exact spot her hand had struck, before pulling back her slim hand.  
  
"You were pathetic, you know," she purrs, her words all poison and seduction. Things plucked from his mind. "Been with her for so long and never once figured it out."  
  
Her blow lands on the opposite cheek, backhand, the diamond ring on her finger against flesh and bone.  
  
Natasha strikes his thigh again, just as Irene's hand strikes his face. He can feel the bruise across his jaw from her ring, the sharpness only somewhat physical.  
  
"Yes," he breathes. Physical pain is nothing to the reminder of how low he'd been. He needs that, needs that penance for his behavior.  
  
"Again, please."  
  
  
She is cold cruelty, pain and humiliation incarnate with crisp precise words and the blows from a slim skilled hand. Still, despite her seeming implacability, there is a gleam in her eyes, pupils dilated, that gives away just how much she is enjoying herself.  
  
"Never even looked for the body, Sherlock. Just _accepted_ blood on the ground as evidence. What if you hadn't seen the mole, pet? You'd be running after her like a lap dog even now."  
  
  
"Yes," he hisses. Because he would have. He'd have dropped everything he cared about here and followed her. Taken her anywhere, let her get away with everything.  
  
"Harder," he begs.  
  
  
She traces a single finger along his jaw, then along the veins in his arm, following the path of blood, of heroin a lifetime ago. "Should I tell you all the things you missed and ignored, things you should have known would have given her away?" she asks. "Or would you rather I call you pathetic for slipping into drugs, into hallucinations because you can't properly punish yourself?"  
  
  
"All of it," he says. "Yes."  
  
Natasha is a blur, a memory in the background to what Irene is giving him. He doesn't care if she's his imagination, or a memory, or a ghost, or something else. He just wants her, wants her to punish him like he deserves to be punished.  
  
Natasha has picked up a cane, thin and rubber.  
  
  
Her nails are impossibly sharp, or as impossible as the nails of an imaginary woman can be, as they trace along his veins, ripping into skin. Her breath is warm, however, as she leans in, her lips against his skin. "You should have known better, Sherlock. Should have followed the paint under her fingernails, picked the lock to the bathroom and seen her lies for yourself, but you went soft. And you're still soft now, seeing things, hearing things, feeling them work just under your skin."  
  
Where one nail dug like a razor blade along his forearm, a second now joined it. "Beg for me, pet, when she strikes you. Do it by name or I'll leave you strung up here wanting with nothing but her blows."  
  
  
He opens his eyes and she's there. He can swear she's there. He can feel her fingertips, like the tips of a needle on his skin. He can see her there, touching him, promising him how she'd punish him. Exactly what he wants, but he has to humiliate himself. Admit his insanity to Natasha.  
  
Because that is, clearly, what it must be at this point.  
  
"Red," he says, before Natasha's arm can go up. His voice is calm, and his eyes are still on Irene. "Money's on the counter, you can leave."  
  
  
There's a moment of silence, of uncertainty, as he deviates from the script she expects, and Natasha studies him for a moment, opens her mouth to ask questions. To make him repeat himself, to satisfy herself, because she does not take well to deviations from her script.  
  
Irene remains standing, having pulled back to study him, to watch her react. "Terrible at discretion, that one," she says conversationally as Natasha sets her tools back down, packs them back away. Still, there is something almost like approval in her eyes as she watches him. Proof, perhaps, that he was not _that_ far gone in his self-flagellation.  
  
  
He straightens, taking the strain off of his wrists, and quickly undoes the locks to his handcuffs. His injured shoulder aches in protest of the movement. He lowers his arms and waits until Natasha leaves, and he hears the back door open before he moves again, taking a step towards Irene.  
  
"What are you?" he asks. "Something in my mind? Some sort of trick of psychology?"  
  
A ghost?  
  
  
He steps towards her, and she moves to her left, circling him, just out of arm's reach. Her steps punctuate her words. "How long have we known each other, Sherlock?" she asks, her blood red lips curved in a knowing smile. "And you just now ask?"  
  
  
"Yes," he says, firmly. "I just now ask. Tell me."  
  
She's out of his reach, and that's normally right where he wants her. A ghost just outside of his touch. But when he reaches for her and she circles him, he wants the distance to close. He wants to know he can touch her.  
  
  
She knows what he wants, and it is her pleasure to deny him, which she does. Though, she does stop circling him, standing still, to study him. The hem of her lace dress sways gently against her ankles as she does.  
  
"You thought I was a heroin-induced hallucination once," she muses. "well, more than once. But now here you are, clean and sober, is it? Able to look temptation in the eye and walk away." She smirks. "Maybe I'm an angel sent to guide you on your path. Or a stress-induced figment of your imagination, signaling the growing dissolution of your mind. Which would you prefer?"

  
  
He lets out a frustrated sigh. What does he want her to be? Does he really want the truth? Does he just want to know if he's insane? He raises his good arm up, pressing his palm against his temple.  
  
He must be going mad. Growing dissolution of his mind, as she said.  
  
The way she's musing at him is downright _infuriating_ in this moment. He wants---he wants---  
  
"Why are you still here?" he demands, breath just above a whisper. "You torment me, but you help me."  
  
She begins circling him again, spiraling inward as she does so until she is behind him, and close enough to touch. Her fingertips rest, light and warm, against the healing wound in his shoulder, and her words are a bare breath against his skin.  
  
"You know the answer to that too," she admonishes. "Because you want help and you believe you deserve torment. So you dissociate, create something, someone that would allow you to have both." A low murmur of a laugh. "Or would you prefer I was a trick, some elaborate hoax _she_ concocted to break you so that she could put you back together? That or angels."  
  
  
"You're not an angel," he says. "You never could be."  
  
He turns sharply, putting his arm around her waist to pull her to him, press his body against her. Feel her there. Make certain she's real, as real as she could be.  
  
  
She inhales sharply when he pulls her to him, and she does feel remarkably real, utterly solid, the pinpricks of lace against warm skin, and she arches an eyebrow in response, as if asking him what it means that she gasps in surprise. If she is, as she claims, a figment of his imagination, privy to his thoughts on desires, she could not, after all, be surprised by his action.  
  
And if she wasn't...  
  
"A demon then, here to drive you mad."  
  
  
His eyes drift down to her mouth. Even like this, the woman who is but is not Irene Adler, she is irresistible to him. Her high cheekbones, her small but perfect mouth, accented sharply in red. He feels unruly and wild in comparison. An oft-used toy to the one who builds them.  
  
"It's working," he says, voice at a whisper.  
  
  
She smirks, fingertips tracing along the spot on his jaw where the diamond on her finger had caught him. A spot that would be markless in the mirror, but which for the moment still stings with the memory of her blows.  
  
"Only because you want it, Sherlock."  
  
  
"Yes," he finds himself admitting. "Yes, I do."  
  
He leans in, brushing her lips with his. Her lips are smaller, firmer, and more controlled than the Irene he knew. He swears he can taste the waxiness of her lipstick on his own mouth. If this is in his mind, he's very, very good at inventing sensation.  
  
  
She allows the kiss for the briefest of moments, long enough to tease, to let the taste of lipstick linger. And then she is gone, stepping out of his grip, leaving him clutching, kissing, ether.  
  
"Demon figment of your imagination that you invited in to drive you mad?" she purrs. "Hardly scientific or logical. I'm almost surprised you'd admit it."  
  
  
He doesn't struggle as she moves from his grip, doesn't hold the air where she was for more than a moment.  
  
"A desire, not a fact," he says. "And I've hallucinated far stranger, but never with this clarity, Irene."  
  
He gestures at her. "You see, I know who you are. I know you're Irene Adler, even if you're nothing like her. Somewhat like her, only more severe." And less of a mass murdering sociopath. As far as he's aware.  
  
  
"And what does it say about you, that you'd dream her like this?"  
  
She smiles and gestures to herself, still deeply amused.  
  
"What happened to the idea that she eclipsed and predominated the whole of her gender, if here I am?"  
  
  
"She wasn't real," Sherlock says. "Perhaps I wanted someone just as imagined."  
  
But what else could she be? A trick? A trap?  
  
  
She tsks and leans in close again, the scent of sandalwood and vanilla clinging to her skin. "Don't lie to yourself, Sherlock. You're too clever for it."  
  
A brush of her lips against his cheek where she'd struck him before she draws away again. "I'll expect a better answer next time."  
  
  
"Don't leave," he begs. Too soon for begging, he tells himself. Too soon for it. " _Please_ , Irene."  
  
  
A pleased chuckle at his words, and she runs her fingers through his short hair, nails ghosting across his scalp. "I'm in your head, Sherlock," she reminds him. "I'll always be here."  
  
  
"Then just stay," he murmurs, not daring to close his eyes even at the pleasing sensation of her fingertips against his scalp. "Torment me forever."  
  
Pathetic. Lonely. Lost. He doesn't care, she has to stay.  
  
  
She smiles, pleased but unyielding. "This isn't the end of the scene. Just the intermission," she says, slipping her hand out of his hair. She draws back, her voice commanding, uncompromising. "Be a good pet and put your clothes back on. I'll want you on your knees the next time."  
  
She is cruelty incarnate, and perhaps that is all the comfort his mind is capable of offering him, that implicit promise that she would return.

  
  



End file.
